1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to database searches.
2. Description of Related Art
A content addressable memory (CAM) is a memory device that stores contents as entries such as addresses and/or data and the like, and have the ability to compare a given search data with its stored entries. If a match is found for the search data, one or more entries associated with the search data is returned. The returned one or more entries may be used directly in a performance of an operation or alternatively, the one or more entries may be used as basis for a “lookup” operation, for example.
CAM devices are widely used in many systems and in particular, in systems that process data such as computer systems, telecommunication systems, network systems and the like. For example, in a network router, an incoming packet header of a packet may be the search data that is used to lookup a destination address of the packet in a CAM device that the router uses to determine which port the packet is to be forwarded. Besides this basic function, a network router may search through the different databases, for example, to determine how the packet is to be processed and/or what filters are to be applied.